‘Devil in the Ozarks' who escaped prison likely still in Arkansas area: officials
It has been 72 hours since a former Arkansas police chief serving decades in prison for murder and rape escaped from prison on Sunday afternoon.
Former Gateway Police Department Chief Grant Hardin, 56, escaped from the North Central Unit on Sunday afternoon in Calico Rock, according to the Arkansas Department of Corrections (ADC).
"We have a pretty good idea of the route that he took and some of those circumstances… and what, if any, lapses happened," ADC Communications Director Rand Champion said during a Wednesday news conference.
"Based on the information that we have and the experience of our teams, they feel fairly confident that he is still fairly close to this region," Champion said, noting that "all it takes is one vehicle" for Hardin to use to travel elsewhere, though officials have established a perimeter around the area of Stone County.
"As of this time, they are still very confident that he is in the area," Champion said.
Champion said the public should assume Hardin is "a very dangerous individual," and there is a risk he may commit more crimes while he is on the run.
It took less than 30 minutes for prison officials to notice that Hardin had disappeared from prison. Photos that the Stone County Sheriff's Office posted to social media show Hardin wearing an ADC-style uniform during his escape through a sally port, though Champion said the uniform he was wearing was not an official uniform.
"It had to have either been homemade or brought in somehow," Champion said of the uniform.
Hardin, who became known as the "Devil in the Ozarks," was sentenced to 30 years for murder plus additional time for rape. He pleaded guilty to the 2017 murder of James Appleton, 59, a city water employee who was found shot in the face inside his work truck, KNWA reported.
While Hardin was being booked into the state prison, officials submitted his DNA sample into a database. His DNA ended up linking him to the rape cold case of a teacher in 1997, the outlet reported.
The victim, a teacher at Frank Tillery Elementary in Rogers, said she was raped by a man with a gun at the school.
"It was proven to be Mr. Hardin beyond all scientific certainty," Nathan Smith, the prosecuting attorney for Benton County at the time, told the outlet.
Authorities confirmed Hardin's DNA matched the DNA linked to the rape suspect. Harrison was ambushed while preparing a lesson plan for the week. The case had been cold for nearly two decades.
Hardin ended up pleading guilty to the rape in 2019.
"Grant Hardin, in my view and in my personal experience, is one of the most dangerous people that I ever seen for the reason that he does not at first appear that way," Smith previously said. "He is a man capable of a seemingly random, horrific murder as well as a random, horrific rape."
Hardin is described as a 6' white male, weighing approximately 259 pounds.
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